


From All Angles

by Karios



Category: Leverage
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Patching Up a Friend, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28330884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/pseuds/Karios
Summary: "You're dangerous, but not deliberately cruel.""Several dead men would disagree with that assessment," Eliot said, his voice shifting to low and threatening. "You don't know me.""I don't," Sophie agreed, "but I believe I'd like to."
Relationships: Sophie Devereaux & Eliot Spencer (Leverage)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	From All Angles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arithanas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, Tana! 
> 
> And many thanks to Lore for the beta work!

Sophie barged into the suite Eliot had claimed with all the grace of a baby elephant. She plucked the medical kit out of his hands with far greater precision, a fraction surprised when Eliot released it. Surprised and relieved, really, she expected more...

"I don't need your help," he said. 

...resistance. And there it was.

Sophie sighed, assessing. His tone was soft and perfectly even, but his eyes shone with pain.

"I know you don't need my help. That's precisely why I'm here." She waved delicately toward the bed in the adjoining room. "Sit."

"I thought the story time circle ended a few minutes ago," he answered.

"Shame that I'm asking you to sit in that case." It was, perhaps, foolish to keep pushing Eliot quite so much, but in warring with her desire to respect his wishes her curiosity had won.

This time Eliot responded by shifting his stance, blocking her exit. Why were men so bloody stubborn?

"I am perfectly aware you're self reliant, Eliot, I just happen to know that it's hard to get a tight stitch on your own body, and the gash on your arm is still weeping."

Eliot looked down at his blood-soaked sleeve as if noticing it for the first time. He shuffled over to sit on the toilet.

"If you insist on staying, do it here. Can't risk dripping on the linens," he said.

It was a tight fit, but Sophie dragged in a chair to serve as a workspace. Together she and Eliot, using his remaining good arm, set out all the supplies she'd need.

She held up the scissors, Eliot nodded, and she cut the shirt free. She winced as she tugged at where the fabric clung to the wound, but it came unstuck without so much as a noise from Eliot. His expression didn't change until she started in with the tweezers, plucking out the individual fibers left behind. It was frankly unnerving. "Say something once in a while."

"Okay," Eliot agreed. "Why are you doing this?"

"What does it matter?"

"It matters because you don't even like me! Go bug Parker. Or Hardison."

"Neither of them got stabbed today," she pointed out reasonably. "If they had, all of us would need to help Hardison and all of us would want to help Parker."

Hardison because he would demand assistance from anyone within a kilometer's radius, and Parker because the woman's sense of self-preservation was nearly non-existent, so someone would need to make certain that she looked after herself.

"That wouldn't happen," he said. His eyes dared her to challenge him.

"Of course not," she agreed easily. Eliot was too much a soldier to accept potential mission failure. Honestly, Sophie admired that sort of confidence. "My point was I'm here precisely because you don't need my help. It's decidedly more interesting."

"You sound as crazy as Parker. Can't you just, I don't know, pick some pockets?"

"I am not the Artful Dodger, even if we are a Dickensian fantasy. And for what it's worth I do, in fact, like you," Sophie insisted.

Eliot snorted.

She knew he couldn't believe her for more than one reason, so Sophie let it go. She got a decent lather going with soap and flushed the area.

That elicited a small hiss of breath, and she realized a beat too late that he wasn't impervious to pain, just a particularly good actor. She wondered if he might have had an easier go of things if she had left well enough alone. It was too late to back out now in any case.

They both worked silently for a moment. Eliot carefully patted dry the area while Sophie prepped the thread and needle. 

"Arm, please," she said once she was ready.

Eliot held it out, using the sink to keep it steady. "Aren't there gloves in there?" he asked as Sophie hovered.

That was thoughtful. She rummaged through the kit again. "Doesn't look like. I'd call down to the kitchen for a pair, but that invites unwanted questions."

"Or you could go and let me get on with doing it myself."

She chuckled. "I thought we were past that."

Sophie then watched as Eliot warred with himself momentarily. "My bag in there. The pocket on the left, the long one."

She nodded and went to fish out a pair of single-use gloves, snapping them into place as she reentered the bathroom. They weren't the best fit, but they would do.

"You really would have done it if it meant getting my blood on you? I could have something."

"I'd have taken my chances, yes," she said as she got her hands into place. "Besides, you would have said something earlier. You're dangerous, but not deliberately cruel."

"Several dead men would disagree with that assessment," he said, his voice shifting to low and threatening. "You don't know me."

"I don't," she agreed, "but I believe I'd like to."

He didn't believe that either, she could tell, but that was fine. She needed to focus on the needle anyway. In, up, over, out. Repeat. She stopped after four stitches to appraise her work with just a bit of distance, and the loops were even and tight. 

"Where did you learn to do that?"

"Everyone above a certain age learned to sew at school as a matter of course. You weren't the only one with ulterior motives in Home Economics classes."

"Home Ec?" he parroted.

"I've seen you cook. You know your way around a knife," she said, deliberately keeping the words casual.

Eliot merely grunted, and she wasn't sure whether that was in response to the obvious segue or the stitches pulling tight, but she finished making her way through the rest of the stitches before she spoke again.

"Be my guest," Sophie said, gesturing toward the excess thread dangling as she peeled off the gloves and scrubbed her hands. Eliot understood and leaned down to bite off the thread ends. 

He turned his arm back and forth, studying her work. "Not bad."

"You're welcome," she replied as she dried her hands on the bath towel. The towel, what remained of Eliot's shirt, the needle and remaining thread were pitched into the fireplace.

"I don't thank people for interrogating me."

"My real question hasn't even happened yet. You're good with a knife," Sophie repeated, "so how did this happen?"

Returning to the supplies, she unraveled a length of gauze and wound it around the stitching, pointedly ignoring Eliot's protests that it was "not necessary".

"Then you can take it off when you get home. I was there, Eliot. You could have gotten out of the way. Why didn't you?"

Eliot shrugged with the good arm and then got up and walked into the bedroom. "Everyone has an off day. Let it go, Sophie."

"You don't. It happened on purpose and not knowing why is going to drive me batty," Sophie complained.

"Consider all the angles," Eliot suggested idly. He stretched out on the bed, clicked on the television.

Sophie took that literally. Shut her eyes and pictured that afternoon. Paced the floor and did blocking for each of the major players. Their mark, her, Eliot, the desk, the doorway...The doorway!

Her eyes flew open. "That little boy." The mark of the day's son. Eight, perhaps nine years old. He loved his father, worshipped him as boys of that age often did. 

"If you'd moved so much as two steps in either direction, the boy would have seen the knife. Known what sort of a man his father really was."

Eliot said nothing, his eyes focused completely on whatever sports match was playing, so Sophie went on. "You were willing to let him pierce you if it meant you could preserve one small boy's innocence. We didn't even get his name."

"Jeremy. His name is Jeremy. And if you say so," Eliot replied. It was as good as a confirmation. "Good night, Sophie."

"Good night, Eliot." Sophie saw herself to the door, shutting it softly behind her as she exited the room.

Eliot Spencer had just gotten significantly more interesting.


End file.
